We’re Growing

If we check the news, we may well see the world appearing to be going down hill. If you follow jyotish trends, you’ll known that the UK, EU and now US have moved into more challenging and unpredictable Rahu periods.

However, understanding the larger trends requires taking a bigger perspective.

In the late ’60’s, you could probably count the number of awake people you’d heard of on one hand. On long retreats, you had to go to places like India and would spend the vast majority of the day in rounds of yoga and meditation.

By the mid-70’s time in rounding had dropped by about half. Literally millions more people had learned to meditate. More teachers visited from India and Asia, then waves of people joined them for long periods in ashrams and retreats. A few woke up. (see American Veda)

Continue that trend for 30 years. Then in the 2006-2008 period, there was a massive wave of people waking up. Some of those fell back into the mind, some became clear, and some continued on through further stages. A few of the awake became spiritual teachers, leading to thousands of them.

Now on retreats they may recommend just one extra round. Or on the ones I attend with Lorne and Lucia, no extra. Simply socialize in the intensified clarity. People make more progress in a weekend than they used to in months. But they do so by being in their life.

But…
Along with this progressing clarity has been a series of styles of problems.

With the waves of many meditating, most people became much more conscious of having thoughts, then many got caught up in the mind. It became common for people to say “in the head”. Identification with the mind rather than body became progressively more common, along with many New Age ideas like “Thoughts are Things” and “What You Think will Be”, distorting the pioneers of success. More recent trends have seen people virtualizing their lives, like seeing Facebook as a “social life” and living through their cell phones.

In the last few years, people have become much more conscious of “energy”. This has also changed our relationship with emotions, like seeing them from the mind and repressing them as a distraction. Or seeing them as objects to be manipulated. As before, some are identifying with these values more and getting caught up in “listening to guides”, “being mindful”, “raising my vibrations”, and “controlling my moods”.

But if the sense of self is impaired, the shift can be more problematic as some are transferring their decision-making and social life to the astral, even to the point of becoming dysfunctional or setting the stage for an intervention.

This progression may seem backwards – after all isn’t the mind more subtle than the emotional body? But remember – this process is inside-out. It’s a good sign group consciousness is waking up more grossly. Even if it means a lot of unresolved baggage is being pushed to the surface to be seen. The news is full of people handling these changes badly. But most people are doing better than they realize.

Key is that this shift is bringing with it new rules for living. Number one – we’re here to live a human life. Most of our time awake should be involved with human things. A social life with real people. Taking action to get results. If your life is not comfortable, then look at what you can do to make it better. Repressing how you feel about it or living in some abstracted space is Not a solution. Living a normal human life is. That’s why we’re human. 🙂
Davidya

I have been reading Chapter 3 in the Bhagavad-Gita and the Lord’s emphases the importance of action in ones dharma, before and after awakening. Bringing the divine into the field of activity is following ones dharma. The version I am reading is the commentary by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Hi Geoff
Yes, it’s a fascinating look at life and surprisingly practical. It’s a book I recommend on the Books page. I have several translations as only the first 6 chapters of Maharishi’s translation have been published. But it’s by far the clearest and his commentary is excellent. I’ve given whole talks on single paragraphs. It’s been in print nearly 50 years.

Thanks for another fun post. Yes, the world is improving, simply because so much social awareness accompanies everything we do. Expression has taken the place of repression, or in Vedic terms the trend is rajasic (active) vs. tamasic (inert). With the raising consciousness over the last decades we are gradually outpacing the rajasic period, to turn it sattvic, which as you say, only happens if we engage ourselves and others. Instead of using spots of clarity as mere guideposts, it is crucial to see the negative space too, the 1 to 99 percent which needs light.

Everything we are must be realized, beyond a few flashlights in the dark. Everything we have come to be gets resolved and exposed. Otherwise, how does life continue, with all of its possibilities in front of us, and all of our responsibilities fulfilled? How does life comfortably, powerfully and inevitably transcend, if we have not become aware of all that we are?